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Blue_Tomb t1_ixpvnhy wrote

I like it a great deal. I think it hits very differently at different times of one's life, I don't find Holden smart or relatable any more but I find it a fine depiction of loss of innocence and a messed up kid adrift. Still like that it isn't really about big external drama though. Was one of the books that taught me that that wasn't needed for literary satisfaction, that character and place and time for themselves could be the vital things.

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Turd_roller t1_ixr2ujw wrote

I think this is the big piece for me. I related with him as a teenager. But now I teach high school and I am heartbroken for the kid. Like he is obviously is emotionally and mentally hurt, and he is not getting the help he needs.

I think Salinger depicts mental illness with a very keen talent. I adore the Nine Stories, with Bananafish perhaps being my all time favorite short story.

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thezoomies t1_ixrrkd1 wrote

That’s been my exact experience! When I read it as a teenager, I thought this world-weary, cynical misanthrope had it all figured out. When I read it again in my twenties, I thought Holden was an old fashioned troll, criticizing and feeling superior to all of this stuff that he was too young to experience or understand. One day as a man in my thirties, I just suddenly remembered the song Holden was trying to remember, and wanting to be a catcher in the rye, and it hit me, he is a child wandering blindly, and he just wants someone to catch him. As a father, I realized all of a sudden, where the hell are this kid’s parents?! Why does this kid need to do this? Why isn’t someone stopping him? He’s been crying out for help all this time. He’s an unreliable narrator, and I needed to know Holden for a while before I learned to see through his bullshit to the child he really is, just like everyone else in the book. I’ve tried harder to know Holden than anyone in there with him in there has. Maybe the reader is ultimately supposed to catch Holden.

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[deleted] t1_ixsq7nj wrote

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thezoomies t1_ixsqc7r wrote

No! I’ve never gone down that rabbit hole! Interesting

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thezoomies t1_ixsqmdw wrote

If I remember correctly, I think I may have not bothered because my initial readings were pre-constant internet access, and I think Holden was just remembering the poem, and he liked that particular part because he wanted to be what he imagined a catcher in the rye to be.

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meatdistributor t1_ixsm4vb wrote

"maybe the reader is ultimately supposed to catch Holden" 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

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budcub t1_ixsx97n wrote

I couldn't fathom how a young kid could get on a train by himself, make a side trip to NYC and get a hotel room on his own, smoke cigarettes all day, chat up a teenage hooker, chat up some nuns about Romeo and Juliet while being unsupervised. My parents wouldn't let me walk to school by myself.

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